Wide Awake
Bell: Not only am I watching TV, but I’m also listening to radio stations and also looking at the internet’ excuse me.
Bell was up till 3:30 in the morning early in the war. Since then he’s scaled back a bit ‘ hitting the sack between midnight and 1 a.m. ‘ but he concedes the late nights are taking a temporary toll on his job at WBHM.
Bell: Yesterday I was very groggy and not quite focused. It took me a couple of hours to get in gear for work.
At the Sleep Disorders Center of Alabama, medical director Robert Doekel says sleep deprivation is a big problem ‘ a 100 billion dollar a year problem, when you take into account medical costs and lost worker productivity.
Doekel: If a person gets so sleep deprived they may fall asleep standing up.
Usually, though, it’s a lot more subtle than that. A study in this month’s issue of the journal Sleep finds that people who sleep only four to six hours a night, instead of the recommended 8 hours, have shorter attention spans and slower reaction times. Doekel says most sleep deprived workers probably don’t even know they’re underperforming.
Doekel: And so if a person is sitting in front of a computer and they’re watching, they’re monitoring certain things happen, they’re actually having episodes of what we call micro-sleep. They may sit there and they may look like their eyes are wide open, but they’re missing the cue on the screen.
That means sleepy workers aren’t just inefficient ‘ they can be dangerous. The Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, and the Exxon Valdez catastrophes have been tied to sleep-deprived workers. An estimated 40 million Americans are chronically ill with various sleep disorders. Twenty to 30 million more experience intermittent insomnia, especially in times of war or great stress. Still, Doekel says employers haven’t awakened up to the huge toll this takes on the workplace.
Doekel: There are a lot of operations that go 24 hours a day and they’ll have people who are working these varied shifts. Now the most insane thing in the world, I think, that someone ever came up with, are these rotating shifts’. One day the person may work a 7 to 3 shift and then they’ll work the 3 to 11 shift.. then they’ll work the 11 to 7 shift. And so their body never gets to adapt to a certain sleep wake schedule. It’s folly! It’s stupidity!
Workers who keep a more regular schedule may be lulled into thinking they’re getting enough sleep, but Doekel says there’s one sure fire test. If you need an alarm to wake up ‘ you’re not getting enough sleep!
Mississippi’s tech scene is in a catch-22. How can it move forward?
Mississippi ranks near the bottom for the size of its tech industry. But despite its shortcomings, some believe the state is not far from its own tech boom.
Flight carrying 242 people bound for London has crashed in Ahmedabad, India
An Air India flight with 242 passengers and crew that was bound for London crashed in India's northwestern city of Ahmedabad shortly after departure.
London-bound Air India flight with more than 240 aboard crashes in Ahmedabad, India
A Boeing 787 crashed into a residential area in Ahmedabad city five minutes after taking off. The flight was bound for London's Gatwick Airport. There were 232 passengers and 12 crew members onboard.
Public media funding up in the air as House prepares to vote on claw backs
public-media-funding-up-in-the-air-as-house-prepares-to-vote-on-claw-backs
More than 400 CDC staff may be called back to work after being laid off in April
Laid off workers were told their notices of an upcoming reduction in force were "revoked." Officials didn't explain why HHS appeared to be restoring hundreds of jobs it previously called duplicative.
ICE’s novel strategy allows for more arrests from inside immigration courts
The Trump administration has a novel strategy to boost arrests and reduce courts' backlog: dismissing people's immigration cases and immediately arresting them.
